


The Spy and The Soldier

by SaraNoH



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Challenge Response, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-04-25 08:25:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4953265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of prompt responses for <b>shieldandgun</b>'s Captain America Civil War Countdown writing challenge dealing with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff.  Each week there is a new theme, and this is where I'll be logging my work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to **the-wordbutler** for the beta.
> 
> This scene takes place just after The Avengers.

Steve gives himself credit for not jumping when he finally catches her reflection in the gym’s wall of mirrors. He feels his shoulders tighten at the sight of her. “Fury send you?” he asks, still not quite making eye contact with anything but the heavy bag he’s been wailing on.

“Yes,” she answers, and he gives her credit for his honesty.

“Why?”

Natasha shrugs. “You probably want to assume that it’s because he thinks you’ll never hit a dame, but the real reason is because I volunteered.”

She’s right. He can’t be sure he can trust her; he heard from Bruce about how she lured him into the fray while in India. Natasha clearly trusts him, at least when she needs to, as evidenced by her willingness to let him launch her off his shield and into the air. Even Steve can admit it was an impressive move.

He catches movement in the mirror as she saunters up to him. Saunter might be an exaggeration; she’s not overemphasizing her curves, but she doesn’t minimize their appearance either when she walks. Peggy flashes into his mind, but he quickly pushes the thought away. For everyone else, he’s been gone for seventy years. But for Steve, it’s only been a few weeks. Not nearly enough time to get over the loss.

“Did you bring it?” Natasha asks.

“Bring what?” he questions as he lands a right hook into the heavy bag. It starts to swing precariously, and Natasha steps behind it told hold it steady. Steve eyes her for a moment; she’s not blatantly challenging what most consider to be his old-fashioned ways of chivalry, just offering assistance if he wants it. He insures that her stance is solid enough to withstand his blows before he starts punching again.

“You’re holding back,” she comments. He ignores her. For the next twenty minutes, the only sound echoing off the brick gym walls are the solid whumps of his fist pounding into the bag. Eventually a seam gives way and sand starts to trickle onto the floor. Steve pulls the bag from the hook and puts it in a large trash can while Natasha sweeps up the sand on the floor. 

“Did you bring it?” she asks again, her green eyes showing the faintest of sparkles.

“Bring what?”

“Your shield,” she answers.

His eyes betray him and glance over at one of the gym bags he brought with him on their own accord. The left corner of her mouth pulls up into a little smirk as she walks toward it. Before her hands reach out, she looks over her shoulder at him, silently asking permission. Steve scans the gym to make sure that they’re by themselves. Ernie still mans the front door, but he hasn’t given Steve up yet in the few weeks he’s been coming here, so he assumes it safe. He nods, and Natasha slowly unzips the bag. She lets out a low whistle as she takes the shield into her grip. She holds it out in front of her, inspects the back and then the front, scrunches her face up slightly when she spots something, and runs her hands over the sole marks embedded in the metal. “Surely you’ve been shot at more than this,” she says. 

Steve shrugs. “Those are the only ones that matter.”

Natasha doesn’t push him about his answer, just continues inspecting the shield. “Lighter than I expected.”

“Made of vibranium,” he says. “Supposed to be all there is of it.”

“More was discovered in Africa about twenty years ago.” 

Steve raises an eyebrow at her comment. “And what’s been done about that?” He’s almost scared to hear the answer. His generation might have won a war, but it doesn’t sound like they necessarily left the world in a better place.

It’s Natasha’s turn to shrug. “No harm, no foul. Wakanda has the right to do with it as they please.”

“But if what they do doesn’t please someone? Maybe a government or S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Natasha shakes her head. “It’s my day off. Don’t make me think about politics.”

“If it’s your day off, what are you doing here?”

“Maybe I want to go eat a huge amount of fries for lunch and I need you as a distraction so people won’t notice me being unladylike.” She flips the shield once more in her hands. “Or maybe I wanted to play with this. Maybe both.” When he doesn’t respond to her, mostly because he doesn’t have a clue what he should say, she straps the shield onto her arm. “Ever fought against someone with it?”

“Not really,” he answers. “What downtime we had, we didn’t want to practice fighting. Or, I guess, discuss politics.”

She smiles at him. “Would you like to fight someone with it?”

“You going to give me a choice?”

“You always have a choice, Rogers,” she tells him. He knows there are stories and endless depth to the barely there emotion he can hear in her words, but he doesn’t have the right to ask her. Not yet, anyway.


	2. Gun

Natasha sleeps with a gun under her pillow. Steve didn’t find that out the way you’re probably assuming he did. Kind of the opposite, in fact. 

He wakes with a groan. The hard metal under the thin pillow only intensifies his pounding headache. He grabs for the weapon, appreciates the fact that the safety is on, and then places it on the rickety nightstand.

It takes a moment to remember that he’s holed up in Natasha’s safe house in Bulgaria. His memories over the last few days are fuzzy at best, much like the inside of his mouth. He sits up slowly in the bed that is barely large enough to fit him and looks around. It’s a studio apartment, and it’s empty. The latter part doesn’t alarm him. Natasha probably left to find some food, or maybe she found a lead. She’ll contact him soon enough. Hopefully. 

Steve pulls his legs over the side of the bed and stumbles over to the corner with a toilet and sink. After relieving himself, he cups some water into his mouth and washes off his face. He’s down to an undershirt and pair of boxers. He hopes Natasha left his clothes around here somewhere and didn’t throw them out the window to show her displeasure at him crashing her undercover mission.

“You sure you should be out of bed?” her voice rings out as she comes into the tiny apartment. 

“How long was I in it?”

“Three days,” she informs him. “What do you remember?”

He scrubs his hands over his face as he leans back against the sink, but it starts to groan under his weight, so he instead makes his way back to the bed. “I was in Italy. Some historians found what they thought was a camp the Howling Commandos made during the war, and Fury and Coulson thought it would be good press for me to go and take pictures while verifying things.”

Natasha snorts. “Coulson probably just wanted to geek out over stuff.” 

Steve shrugs. “I was there for a few hours when word came from Clint that you’d missed your last two check-ins.”

“He should know better than to worry about me after twelve hours,” she argues.

“Since I was in the neighborhood, I said I’d go check things out,” he continues. “But the last thing I remember was boarding the Quinjet to get here.”

“You got me out of a pinch, I’ll admit that,” she replies with a hint of a bitterness in her voice. “But no telling that to the others.”

“Secret’s safe with me,” he says. “Mind filling me in on the rest of it? Not a big fan of a lot of time passing while I’m unconscious.” 

“I was cornered and outnumbered. Pretty pissed at you for barging in and blowing my cover, but you turned out to be handy in a crunch.” She walks over and sits on the bed next to him. “Injuries look good,” she comments while inspecting the bandages Steve didn’t really notice until now.

He eyes the pink flesh, more than likely a sign of a gunshot wound. “I usually heal faster than this. Not really sure what happened.”

“Coulson said you were nervous about the trip, reliving the past and all of that. You didn’t eat as much as you should,” Natasha tells him. “Then, you expended a lot of energy fighting with me. I kept having to wake you up to feed you some glucose paste to make sure your blood sugar didn’t completely bottom out.” 

“Thanks for taking care of me,” Steve says.

“I should be saying that to you,” Natasha replies with a hint of a smile.

“Umm, you know where my clothes are?” he asks. “I should go eat, which probably means leaving here since I don’t think this place is big enough to hold all the food I need to consume.” 

Natasha walks over to the small dresser and opens the top drawer. “They’re clean,” she says as she holds out a pair of slacks and a button-up shirt. “Can’t promise they don’t have holes in them. Forgot my sewing kit in my other safe house.”

“Hilarious,” he mutters as he stiffly pulls on the clothes. Even though he can still smell soap on the clothes, some stains have lingered, and Natasha was right—he needs some patches to cover up a few rips and tears. But none of the flaws are in embarrassing places. He’ll stand out for sure wherever they go, but now that his face is plastered everywhere, that would happen anyway. He envies Natasha’s ability to slip in and out of places undetected.

“Want me to get you something and bring it back?” she asks, seeming to read his mind. 

Steve shakes his head. “Need to stretch my legs. I won’t put you into any more danger by going out there, will I?”

“No,” Natasha answers. “They’re taken care of.”

He doesn’t push to ask what that means, mostly because he doesn’t want to know. He softly says her name as she reaches for the door. “Thank you for watching out for me,” he repeats.

“Same to you.”


	3. Motorcycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're not really following canon at this point. I'm used to living with my Nadiaverse set of events--Phil comes back to be the team's handler, they all move in together, etc. Doesn't mean that these little blurbs will be part of the Nadiaverse. Just that they're not quite canon, or at least not this one.

Natasha shouldn’t be surprised to find Steve fiddling with a tablet in the dead of night. She silently wonders what’s keeping him awake as he looks up and gives her a small smile. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“Sleep just fine,” she answers as she sinks down on the couch next to him. “Just don’t like what I see when I close my eyes.”

He nods knowingly and goes back to his tablet. Upon closer inspection, Natasha can see it’s some sort of digital paint app, probably personally designed by Tony. She knows Stark is trying hard to make them all comfortable by moving them into the newly renamed Avenger Tower, but the closeness sometimes strains every muscle in Natasha’s back and shoulders. She’s not built to have a home, a place to call her own. She isn’t used to seeing the same faces everyday unless it’s for a long-term deep cover mission. She’s still trying to figure out just how many walls to let down, but it’s hard.

“Wanna get out of here?”

Steve’s question brings her back to the present. “And go where?”

He shrugs. “Wherever the road takes us.” When she keeps looking at him, he shakes his head at his poor attempt to sound modern and cool. “My bike’s down in the garage. There’s room for you on the back.”

There’s a joke on the tip of her tongue about what if she’d like it better having him seated behind her, but it dissolves as quickly as it forms. “Sure,” she answers. “Just let me change.”

Ten minutes later, they’re riding through the mostly empty avenues and streets of the city. Both neglect to wear a helmet. If a cop wants to pull them over, Natasha’s pretty sure they can talk their way out of a ticket. 

She wraps his arms around his waist and buries her face in the shoulder of his leather jacket. She can also catch a whiff of the aftershave he wears, the one that smells masculine without overpowering the room. For a while, she watches the lights and the buildings zip by, but once those become fewer and far between, she closes her eyes and lets the roar of the engine and the warmth of his body drown out her brain. And it almost works, too.

After a while, they stop. Steve pulls the bike off to the side of a country highway and nods toward a field. “You could watch the stars for a while if you want. Heard that calms some people down.”

“But not you?” she questions.

He shakes his head. “It’s what we did during the war—a way to try and feel normal. But it never really worked.” He ducks down and starts inspecting his bike, a habit of making sure everything is in place in case they have to leave in a hurry. For a second, she wonders how he can see any detail in the dark, but then she remembers reading about his night time acuity.

“Did they ever mess with your memory?” she asks as she sits down on the ground beside where he’s looking over the machine.

“Sure,” he answers. “Improved it. Can see something for a split second, even in my peripheral vision, and have it memorized.” When she stays quiet he asks, “But that’s not what you meant, is it?”

She picks up a rock along the edge of the road and turns it over in her hands, distracting herself with analyzing the texture and surface of it. “They would give us fake memories,” she admitted quietly.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.?” he questioned, a threatening undertone in his voice.

“No,” she says with a small smile. “They haven’t gone that far. Yet, at least. I meant my previous handlers.” He stills, turns, and sits beside her, recognizing the rarity of her opening to something so personal. “My head is all jumbled from back then. I can’t remember what’s real and what’s not, what’s me and what isn’t.”

“I can kind of understand that,” he says. “Clearly your situation is more dramatic than being forced to parade around the country in tights to drum up war bonds, but...” His words trail off, and he shrugs. “I’ll listen, if you want to talk about it.”

Natasha huffs a quick burst of laughter. “Talk more? No. That’s all you get. This time, at least.”

“Do I get to know that this is why you couldn’t sleep?” he questions.

She pauses a moment before nodding. “I try and keep a ledger of all the wrongs I’ve done so I can make some kind of atonement, but I dream there’s new sins to add to the list. Yet when I wake up, I can’t remember if it was ever real or not.” She rolls the rock around in her hand again. “Why can’t you sleep?”

“Accelerated metabolism and enhanced body makes it so I don’t need as much sleep,” he answers, but she continues staring at him until he sighs and gives up the truth. “I see people who are still young to me, but have been dead for years. Or are still living, but they’re old and I’m not.”

“And you have a perfect memory to envision them as they should be, but not how they are,” she comments, and he nods. “Sounds like we’re both head cases.”

He laughs at that. “So what are we going to do about it?”

Natasha looks at the horizon, displaying the slightest bit of light. “Watch the sun come up, and then figure it out.”

“If we leave for the city, we’ll catch mid-morning traffic. And since we’re not wearing helmets, we’ll be easily recognized. What would the press think if they saw us on a bike together?” Steve asks.

“I don’t care, do you?”

“Not really.”

“But I don’t think I’m ready to go back yet. Need some more time to breathe in open air,” she tells him.

He nods in understanding. “We’ll go back tonight. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. calls, we’re taking a sick day.”

“Because that won’t spur more rumors than us being on Page Six,” she points out.

“I don’t care, do you?” he asks, echoing her words back to her.

“Not really.”


	4. Quinjet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been crap at replying to comments on all my stories lately. Please know that I cherish them deeply and I sincerely apologize for being lazy. Thanks you guys so much for taking the time to read this.

Steve makes his way to the cockpit of the Quinjet and seats himself in the left seat. Technically, he thinks, it’s the pilot’s chair. But even though Clint is in the back, Natasha remains rooted in her co-pilot’s seat. Maybe it’s one of the few habits she’s willing to show off.

“How is everyone?” she asks, keeping her eyes on the dials and readouts in front of her. Steve knows she could put it on auto-pilot if she wanted, but he also knows that she does her healing and coping in private. Her mission now isn’t to deal with the latest threat, it’s to get her “boys” back home to safety.

“We’ll be fine. Banner is meditating in the back with his new headphones. Stark is trying to lurk and make sure he’s okay without being obvious about it.”

“I’m sure he’s wonderfully successful at that,” Natasha joked dryly.

“Barton is bandaged and sleeping thanks to some pain killers.”

“I don’t know how those even touch him anymore, his tolerance to meds should be so high.”

Steve knows it’s meant to come out as a joke, but he can hear the worry in her voice. Suddenly, he feels like he’s back in the war on a plane flying into an unauthorized mission to save Bucky. “You two ever...” He stops himself before something like the word “fondue” slips out. Seventy years later, and he still feels like an idiot for that sentence.

Natasha turns her head and stares at him for a moment. He has absolutely no right to ask her something so private, and he knows she has every right to gut him for doing so. He tries to maintain an expression of nonchalance and hopes it works. “When I first came to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she answers after a moment. “I thought it was a way to continue thanking him for getting me out of my situation, and he thought it was a way to continue helping me. Both are terrible reasons to have a relationship, and it quickly ended. We just stick to best friends now. No benefits.”

“Benefits?” he asks. The question is out of his mouth before he can stop it. He tries not to show his ignorance at new phrases and objects, usually reserving them for using the internet in private. 

“Sex,” Natasha answers bluntly. “Friends who have sex with each other.”

“Ah,” he answers, and he’s suddenly grateful that it’s Natasha who’s clarifying the phrase for him. Stark would mock him, Barton might exaggerate the meaning, Banner would be flustered, and if Thor was on the planet, he would probably be just as lost as Steve.

“Have another phrase for it back in your time?” she asks with a smile. “Or a certain way to carve it into a cave wall?”

“So funny,” he mutters, and just like that whatever tension he was feeling about being lost and asking personal question drops.

“Any friend you’d like to have benefits with?” Natasha asks. His mouth drops slightly at the forward question, and her smile broadens. “You get to ask me a personal question, then I get to ask you one.”

“No,” he answers quickly. Because he still thinks it’s untoward to discuss things like that with a woman, maybe even with some men. 

“No one?” she questions. “There’s that nurse who’s always eager to perform your physicals. I know Maria checks out your ass every time you walk by. Or maybe you’d rather be interested in the guy who works night shift at the S.H.I.E.L.D. gun range.”

He feels his skin flush, and his tongue grows thick. He knows the nurse has a crush on him, but she’s one of the few who makes sure her hands stay professional during his post-mission medical checks. The thought of getting involved with another brunette who is his superior does all kinds of things to his mind, but Maria isn’t the brunette he’d like to have. “Not guys,” he says. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not what I’m interested in.”

Natasha nods. “Well, if you ever need help in the benefits department, let me know,” she offers.

A vision suddenly washes into his mind of her red curls on his pillow and their bodies tangled up in one another. He tries to keep his breathing normal at the sight and curses his enhanced memory for searing the image into his mind. It won’t leave for a while, he knows. He also knows that he needs to get out of the cockpit before he’s completely comprised. “I’m going to go check on Barton again,” he says. He’s almost positive he can feel her smirking behind him as he leaves.


	5. Quinjet--BONUS (because I forgot I already did this one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needed just a short drabble to push me over 10,000 words penned for the month and I'm way behind on this. Two birds, one stone.
> 
> Also, I just threw this together and didn't ask Kate to bother with looking at it. Mistakes are my own.

Clint waited for the nurse to finish taking his vitals. He felt bad about getting injured—guilty, not in pain from the wounds. He’d suffered worse plenty of times. But apparently it looked bad since Cap was standing guard at the foot of the bed and Natasha was sleeping in an uncomfortable chair to Clint’s left. Honestly, her waking up with a crick in her neck from the plastic seat would do him more harm than what landed him in the medward in the first place.

Once the nurse left the room, Clint said, “You should ask her out.”

Cap’s eyebrows rose. “The nurse?”

“No, but pretty sure she’d say yes. Pretty sure you could ask a potted plant out and it would find a way to say yes.”

“Natasha,” Clint corrected. “You should ask out Natasha.”

“What makes you think she’d say yes?” Cap questioned.

“Because I saw her flirting with you in the cockpit of the Quinjet,” Clint replied.

Rogers’s face morphed into confusion. “First, all we did was have a normal conversation. And second, you were half-conscious on the way back in.”

Clint rolled his eyes, even if it made the pain from yet another concussion worse. “A normal conversation—regular and honest—that’s flirting for Nat. And if I noticed it while half-conscious, then it was definitely there. Ask her out already.”


	6. Catch

Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He’d heard rumor that Natasha was sick but wasn’t expecting this. She opened the door to her apartment door—a location it took a number of bribes to discover—with puffy eyes, red nose, and a glare. She was wearing an oversized hoodie (probably Clint’s), Iron Man pajama pants (definitely Tony’s), and fuzzy socks that boasted an artistic representation of Mjolnir. 

“Don’t Bruce or I get any love?” he asked, incapable of not saying anything about her appearance.

“What do you want?” she asked, congestion thick in her hoarse voice.

“Heard you caught something nasty after your last mission. Must be bad if it’s making you this sick. Wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he said while holding out a white Styrofoam bowl, steam seeping through a couple of holes in the lid.

“I don’t like chicken noodle,” she responded and started to shut the door.

Steve, on instinct, stuck his foot inside in the door jamb to block her. “Not chicken noodle. Looked up an authentic Russian deli. Asked the woman behind the counter what she’d want if she were sick. She put this in a bowl; I don’t know how to pronounce it.” 

Natasha accepted the food and sniffed the aroma it was releasing. With a hummed note of approval, she moved out of the doorway—a silent invitation for him to enter. “What else is in the bag?”

“Sandwich for me,” he answered. “Do you want me to go get you something else?”

She shook her head. “Just nosy.”

“Can I ask what’s wrong with you?” he asked. “I used to be sick a lot. Might have some home remedies up my sleeve.”

“Fought off a lot of genetically enhanced bacterial infections back in the twenties, did you?” she challenged.

“Felt like it,” he admitted.

“If this is bad enough to make me this sick, you might want to keep your distance,” Natasha warned.

“If that’s you telling me to leave, okay. But if you’re genuinely concerned about my health, I weirdly miss not having a perfect body every now and then.”

“You miss getting sick?” she asked.

Steve shrugged. “I miss people taking care of me,” he quietly admitted.

They ate their lunches in relative silence, and he disposed of the remnants of the meal when they were done, silently looking for an excuse to stick around. “Movie?” Natasha suggested. “What’s on your list that you haven’t watched yet?”

“Star Wars,” Steve offered. “But if you’re not into sci-fi—“

“Don’t ever watch the prequels. Those were a cruel joke on humanity. And we’re watching an old VHS tape of _A New Hope_ before Lucas ruined perfection with unnecessary special effects.” Natasha moved to the living room and began to dig in a drawer. “There’s popcorn in the cupboard.”

“Sounds like your throat needs ice cream,” he suggested.

“Both, then.”

They settled themselves on her couch that barely was big enough for her and his wide shoulders. She studied his face for a moment before saying, “You’re on my underwear.” He arched an eyebrow. There were a number of responses he could give, most would either encourage her good mood or cause him pain in delicate parts. Not sure exactly which route to take, he pulled out his phone and opened his e-mail. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Telling Tony’s merchandise people to start making Black Widow boxers.”


End file.
